NEWPORT BEACH, Marilyn C. Brewer, Former member, California Assembly: Arte Moreno came to town and didn't quite like Angel Stadium [“Anaheim and the anatomy of a bad deal,” Opinion, Dec. 9]. Millions of dollars were spent on a remodel.

Moreno came to town and didn't like our name. We're now the Los Angeles Angels.

Arte Moreno is still in town, and now the Anaheim City Council may permit millions of dollars from Anaheim citizens to develop the Los Angeles Angels parking lot into a commercial complex – to the benefit of Moreno.

We've had enough of Arte Moreno. Instead, we need to build some community pride and trust with the city of Anaheim.

This is how Anaheim's council can push for this: 1) Start with pushing to restore the team's name to the Anaheim Angels (or, at the very least, California Angels. 2) Demand that Moreno pays for his own repair and maintenance. Ever heard of a triple net lease? 3) Above all, be fair. A dollar a year to lease out prime Orange County property is a deal any developer would take. It's obscene, however. It's a “gift of public funds.” It should be illegal.

Tom Tait is a good man, a good mayor and is looking out for the welfare of his city.

He is the only member of the council doing so.

The other members of the council are essentially supporting the “Moreno gift.” It amounts to nothing more than corporate welfare.

Mandela's legacy

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Tom Chapman: It's a shame that the Register, in its acknowledgment of Nelson Mandela's passing, could not resist the ideological temptation to throw some final brickbats by suggesting that there were two Mandelas: the good one that was the highly respected world leader and adored father of his country; and the bad one that advocated violent resistance and sought allies to his cause of freedom wherever he could find them [“Mandela met the challenge of power,” Editorial, Dec. 6]. You could, but would you say the same thing about George Washington?

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ANAHEIM, Anthony Awoyele: The death of an important icon to the whole wide world takes a toll on everybody. Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, was a magnificent man.

We can call him the Martin Luther King Jr. of this era. What is unfortunate is the reaction from kids of this generation who are unaware of what he did. A large number of them do not seem to know who Mandela was. I saw, when I logged into my social networks, people misrecognizing Nelson Mandela for actor Morgan Freeman.

Mandela cannot be forgotten.

Trickle-down economics

TUSTIN, Bob Machado: As I read the editorial deriding Pope Francis for his view on trickle-down economics, I was stunned by your statement that “[the] wealthy do not get rich at the expense of the poor” [“Capitalism doesn't merit papal slam,” Editorial, Dec. 9].

Over the past five years, the “1 percent” of the population garnered over 93 percent of income growth in the country. Where do the editors think this income came from? When Walmart employees have to apply for food stamps, and most of the new jobs in the economy came from low-wage and part-time work, don't tell us that the wealthy didn't get rich at the expense of the poor. Many of these workers could not afford health insurance, either.

We, the taxpayers, end up paying for the food stamps and the emergency room costs. The unbridled free-market economic philosophy, as the editorial suggests, does not work to help the poor. This is what Pope Francis was saying. Try to live a month on the wages of these workers in Orange County, without health care, and determine whether the diatribe against the pope is warranted.

Hospitals opt out

VILLA PARK, Russell Patterson: As a business owner, it has always been important that our health plan include St. Joseph Hospital and that all related charges paid by employees are reasonable. Low bidder is not always the best deal. The proper analysis is provided by qualified risk managers. Having multiple sources for insurance keeps the price and quality responsive to the buyer's needs. This advantage disappears with a single source provider. When private insurers verify claims, rather than simply process them, costs are lower as the amount paid out for fraud is lessened.

The Affordable Care Act does not have one provision that reduces the actual cost to deliver health care. The ACA's plan to reduce costs is to reduce payments to doctors, drug providers and hospitals. Many of California's best doctors will not participate. Top hospitals, including University of California medical facilities, have declined to participate, according to U.S. News and World Report. Fewer providers do not improve the delivery of health care to Californians.

Eliminate the profit motive, and innovation is lost. The majority of significant scientific advances in medical care in the previous 100 years have been in the U.S. The profit motive is not evil and is not a zero-sum game.

Indeed, by saying business license, this is just an implied code for new taxes. These businesses will suffer, which will burden the industry. For instance, hookah lounges are way more harmful than those vapor stores but they don't suffer from the same level of restrictions. City officials are imposing this because they are clueless of what the real effects of e-cigarettes are. Indeed, putting more restrictions on e-cigarettes will affect the former smokers trying to quit and stop their addiction to the significantly more harmful cigarettes. That's the affect of our ubiquitous government getting involved.

Overall, imposing more taxes on businesses will certainly not help our economy to recover but will burden the people who are benefiting from it.

State's surplus

LAGUNA NIGUEL, John H. Seibert: Letter-writer M.J. Knudsen is correct in writing that California is back in the black, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Gov. Jerry Brown [“Gov. Brown puts state in the black,” Letters, Dec. 8].

With any amount of research on what happened in California with tax increases in 2012, you would find that it was the California citizens that put California back in the black. Personal income tax increases brought in billions of dollars to the state treasury from all working people in California who pay taxes and drove those mobile income earners that make over a million dollars out of the state (such as Tiger Woods).

The sales tax increase also brought in billions of dollars due to the purchasing of items by everyone in California. And the gas tax increase of 3.5 cents a gallon also brought in billions of dollars from car owners of California. The list goes on.

Brown had nothing to do with the state surplus; we the citizens of California deserve the credit by giving up a large part of our discretionary income to taxes.

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